Transcribed from the 1864 Chapman and Hall “Tales of AllCountries” edition , email
The prettiest scenery in allEngland—and if I am contradicted in that assertion, I willsay in all Europe—is in Devonshire, on the southern andsouth-eastern skirts of Dartmoor, where the rivers Dart, andAvon, and Teign form themselves, and where the broken moor ishalf cultivated, and the wild-looking upland fields are halfmoor. In making this assertion I am often met with muchdoubt, but it is by persons who do not really know thelocality. Men and women talk to me on the matter, who havetravelled down the line of railway from Exeter to Plymouth, whohave spent a fortnight at Torquay, and perhaps made an excursionfrom Tavistock to the convict prison on Dartmoor. But whoknows the glories of Chagford? Who has walked through theparish of Manaton? Who is conversant with Lustleigh Cleevesand Withycombe in the moor? Who has explored HolneChase? Gentle reader, believe me that you will be rash incontradicting me, unless you have done these things.
There or thereabouts—I will not say by the waters ofwhich little river it is washed—is the parish of OxneyColne. And for those who wish to see all the beauties ofthis lovely country, a sojourn in Oxney Colne would be mostdesirable, seeing that the sojourner would then be brought nearerto all that he would wish to visit, than at any other spot in thecountry. But there in an objection to any sucharrangement. There are only two decent houses in the wholeparish, and these are—or were when I knew thelocality—small and fully occupied by theirpossessors. The larger and better is the parsonage, inwhich lived the parson and his daughter; and the smaller is afreehold residence of a certain Miss Le Smyrger, who owned a farmof a hundred acres, which was rented by one Farmer Cloysey, andwho also possessed some thirty acres round her own house, whichshe managed herself; regarding herself to be quite as great incream as Mr. Cloysey, and altogether superior to him in thearticle of cyder. “But yeu has to pay no rent,Miss,” Farmer Cloysey would say, when Miss Le Smyrgerexpressed this opinion of her art in a manner too defiant. “Yeu pays no rent, or yeu couldn’t doit.” Miss Le Smyrger was an old maid, with a pedigreeand blood of her own, a hundred and thirty acres of fee-simpleland on the borders of Dartmoor, fifty years of age, aconstitution of iron, and an opinion of her own on every subjectunder the sun.
And now for the parson and his daughter. Theparson’s name was Woolsworthy—or Woolathy, as it waspronounced by all those who lived around him—the Rev. SaulWoolsworthy; and his daughter was Patience Woolsworthy, or MissPatty, as she was known to the Devonshire world of thoseparts. That name of Patience had not been well chosen forher, for she was a hot-tempered damsel, warm in her convictions,and inclined to express them freely. She had but twoclosely intimate friends in the world, and by both of them thisfreedom of expression had now been fully permitted to her sinceshe was a child. Miss Le Smyrger and her father were wellaccustomed to her ways, and on the whole well satisfied withthem. The former was equally free and equally warm-temperedas herself, and as Mr. Woolsworthy was allowed by his daughter tobe quite paramount on his own subject—for he had asubject—he did not object to his daughter being paramounton all others. A pretty girl was Patience Woolsworthy atthe time of which I am writing, and one who possessed much thatwas worthy of remark and admiration, had she lived where beautymeets with admiration, or where force of character isremarked. But at Oxney Colne, on the borders of Dartmoor,there were few to appreciate her, and it seemed as though sheherself had but li